Tagged: aliens

With the second half of episode 31 of Eureka Seven, the real nature of the series’ apparent antagonist is shown. Dewey – who has previously only been seen as a perversely parental equivalent to Holland – and Koda are speaking about the nature of the world and it is framed in similar language to that of William Baxter. The implication is that the planet on which the story is set was colonised by some space-fleet and populated in accordance to a grand plan, but now an indiginous entity – represented by the Coralians as Egan has alluded to in the first half – is fighting back. The identity of the Ageha unit is revealed as well – child soldiers similar to Anemone but apparently without the addiction to drugs and insecurities that she shows. They are consummate soldiers, obedient and amoral.

There is an ongoing tension by this point in Eureka Seven between the desire for normality – and the concessions that must be made to make this happen – and the repercussions of the traumas that the cast have encountered. Too much has changed for there to be any hope of the life that anyone initially wanted; Holland cannot have the life with Talho and Eureka he desired now Renton has entered the scene, Renton will not get his naïve dream of a fun life spent with sportsmen and rebels. How this has manifested is in an increased sense of responsibility, shown perhaps most clearly in Talho’s change of image. Her more modest outfit and short hair is a simple visual cue of “seriousness” – she is not the casual, figure that she was before but instead a mature adult.

A stock-in-trade plot device in alien invasion stories is the inadequacy of modern technology in the face of a superior foe; notable examples include The War of the Worlds, where the invading Martians effectively outfight the humans only to die in time to common illnesses, and even stories like Independence Day where the patriotic ending is only possible after human guile undermines the aliens’ shields. This subgenre of science-fiction is picked up in anime, as well, but given a slightly more hopeful spin in the super-robot genre with a single effective weapon paving the way for resistance. The heroes are painted as the people capable of fighting back against superior enemy forces with cutting-edge weapons, ultimately a patriotic view of superior technology and willpower winning out in the end.